August 19, 2008

Friendster Deploys OpenSocial Support for Benefit of 75 Million Users, Developers and Industry

by ssavage

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Friendster, Inc. (http://www.friendster.com/), a top-10 global website based on traffic and the #1 social network in Asia,* today announced that it has deployed the OpenSocial standard application programming interfaces (APIs) as part of the Friendster Developer Program. Companies and individual developers can now use the OpenSocial standard to introduce their applications, or features, to Friendster's 75 million users around the world.

OpenSocial support is a significant enhancement and extension to the successful Friendster Developer Program, launched in late 2007. Friendster was only the second major social network to launch a robust developer platform, and since then, the Friendster Developer Program has been successful with both users and developers alike. Since its launch, over 10 million unique users have added "apps," most users add several apps, and about half a million apps are being added by users to their profile pages each day. There are thousands of developers registered for the Friendster Developer Program, there are about 2,000 members of the Friendster Developer Platform Group on Friendster, over 450 apps have been deployed on Friendster, and thousands more apps are currently under development by third-party developers.

"With widespread support throughout the industry, OpenSocial has become a de facto standard for developers of social applications. OpenSocial makes it easier than ever for developers to build and distribute their applications across multiple destination sites like Friendster. Developers can spend less of their time on integrating and more of their time on building interesting, useful, fun, and/or compelling features," said David Jones, vice president of global marketing for Friendster. "Everybody wins - users gain access to new features, developers can introduce their innovations to the massive user bases of social networks, and social networks gain third-party features to continue to drive up user engagement on social networks."

OpenSocial is a community-driven initiative that continues to evolve with the help of many developers, websites, and companies, including Google. Friendster, a founding member of the OpenSocial initiative, has deployed APIs from version 0.7 of the OpenSocial specification, making it easy for existing OpenSocial applications using version 0.7 to be launched on Friendster and reach Friendster's over 75 million users. Friendster also plans to support additional OpenSocial APIs in the coming months, including the new 0.8 APIs.

"We are pleased that Friendster has deployed OpenSocial APIs for the benefit of users and developers alike," said David Glazer, director of engineering at Google. "Friendster's launch is another major milestone in the adoption and deployment of OpenSocial throughout the social web and around the world. We're particularly excited that OpenSocial is helping Friendster bring new social applications to users in Asia, and we look forward to seeing users embrace these apps."

Developers are building apps on Friendster for several reasons:

-- Friendster is the only way for developers to reach 55 million users in Asia on a single social network.

-- The Friendster Developer Program has a completely open revenue model. It is free, there is no revenue share with Friendster, and virtually any monetization model is allowed on Friendster. Ads are allowed anywhere in apps -- unlike other social networks -- so developers can even place ads as part of their app on the profile page for a dramatic increase in page views and corresponding advertising revenues. Friendster is the only social network to allow developer ads on the profile page.

-- The Friendster user base is mostly distinct from other social networks. OpenSocial developers can reach tens of millions of new users because Friendster's user base does not overlap much with those of other social networks. For example, the highest overlap with any top social network is 18%, so depending on the social network, at least 82% of Friendster's 57 million monthly unique visitors in July are new users that developers cannot reach any other way.**

-- Viral support has been built-in by Friendster for all apps. Friendster has introduced several viral features to enable a user of an app to share it with their friends, but in respectful, thoughtful ways, such as aggregating these app invitations into a single email digest that is only received periodically. As a result, friends aren't inundated with too many email invitations to try new apps from their friends. And, users have a new setting allowing them to control whether they receive these app invitations via email.

Developers can view the latest technical documentation, or register for the program, at http://www.friendster.com/developer. Developers are also encouraged to join the OpenSocial Friendster Developer group, at http://www.friendster.com/group/tabmain.php?gid=1966730. To view the current directory of third-party applications already launched on Friendster, go to http://www.friendster.com/apps.

Friendster Leads in Asia and is a Top 10 Global Website

Friendster is the #1 social network in Asia, with over 55 million registered users and 33 million monthly unique visitors from Asia.* In Asia, Friendster is almost twice the size of any other social network.

Friendster is the 9th largest website and the 3rd largest social network in the world in terms of traffic, with over 22.1 billion page views a month.* Friendster is 1st in "user engagement" among the top five global social networks with an average of 215 minutes per visitor per month.

About Friendster

With more than 75 million members worldwide, Friendster is a leading global online social network. Friendster is focused on helping people stay in touch with friends and discover new people and things that are important to them. Online adults, 18 and up, choose Friendster to connect with friends, family, school, social groups, activities and interests. Friendster prides itself in delivering an easy-to-use, friendly and interactive environment where users can easily connect with anyone around the world via http://www.friendster.com/ or m.friendster.com from any Internet-ready mobile device. Friendster has a growing portfolio of patents granted to the company on social networking, with more expected over the next several months. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, Friendster is backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures, IDG Ventures and individual investors. For more information, visit: http://www.friendster.com/.